We’ve Got to Move These Colour TVs
As it’s been a while since I’ve had a proper whinge at the Public View of something, I thought it was time that changed:
Planned Obsolescence is something which I have despised ever since one of my English teachers at high school went out on a tangent and talked about our increasing consumerist culture (it was an interesting year of English, enough said!). He went on to talk about how most things are manufactured in order to make it to the warranty date (typically one year from purchase) and then promptly fall to pieces (or suddenly lose all semblance of battery power, *cough* iPod *cough*).
The extent of this mindset in the General Public hadn’t really hit home - partly because I’m still a student, and as such I run everything until it breaks and even then try and tape it together for another semester - until late last week. I was talking to someone who had recently bought a new TV. “Wow,” you’re all saying “So what’s the big deal?”. Well the deal is that the only reason they bought a new one was because the old one had started “buzzing”. It wasn’t taken in for repairs, or even smacked light-heartedly on the side a couple of times until everything was restored to normal. Instead they bought a new one and relegated the old one to the garage. This isn’t a personal vendetta, the TV was at least a couple of years old, and well past its warranty, this is more of a vendetta against the Views of the General Public.
We live in a world where you can renew your mobile phone for free every 24 months if you stay on a contract - just so you can get video-calling or picture messaging - even if your current phone has nothing wrong with it. Where we buy bottles of water every day and toss them in the recycling instead of simply re-using the bottles the next day. Where if you don’t have this season’s brand of ridiculous sunglasses then you may as well not have any.
Okay, so you get my gist. It’s not a huge thing, just something that gets on my nerves a bit, when people just “go out and buy a new one” instead of taking the time to get it fixed. I have little doubt that once I’m in the ‘real world’ and earning ‘real money’ I will change my opinion, but for now it stays!
P.S. Think twice before buying a Dell laptop lest it explode on you!
July 31st, 2006 at 8:31 pm
Hey Will, it is good to see that your overseas trip has really opened your eyes, broadened your horizons, and motivated you to better spend your time by… reading Endadget?
Just wondering, have you actually tried to repair any electronics made in a Chinese factory? Its a bloody mine field in those things. Shoddy electrolytic caps that leak caustic liquid if not just blow up in your face, heatsinks that in any other product would be isolated, but instead are just with an exposed high voltage on them, PCBs that seem to be held together by hot glue and cockroach legs….
On the other hand, if its more high tech than things with discrete circuits, everything is just on one or two ICs, which, when they fail simply can’t be replaced (cos its too small or just doesn’t exist outside darkest China).
(p.s. I’ve got nothing against China. Read “China” above as “anywhere that does cheap manufacturing”. Or things manufactured in the UK… )
And yeah, I’m with you on the planned obsolescence stuff. Although, consider this. Would you rather pay twice as much for something that will last maybe twice as long? See, planned obsolescense is actually pretty sweet for us geeks who like new and fun new tech toys. Maybe its not a conspiracy by the manufacturers, maybe its just what consumers want (whether they know it or not). If you have your nice twice-as-expensive-but-well-made-TV, and accidentally smash it (hey it could happen), then you have to pay twice-as-much-as-the-cheap-shitty-one again to replace it. Or you drop your cellphone in a puddle (don’t ask). So although things aren’t as well made, we do get newer (better) replacements more often and when we do something stupid and break them, its cheaper to replace too. The only loser really is the good ol’ environment, and you could argue with the amount of punishment it has already put up with, a little more won’t hurt
Hugo
July 31st, 2006 at 8:33 pm
yo yo yo homey bro!
July 31st, 2006 at 8:34 pm
get with da flow
July 31st, 2006 at 8:34 pm
slow mo’fo
July 31st, 2006 at 10:17 pm
actually shoogo, I was directed to it on gizmodo but couldn’t find it when I was writing!
Yeah I like lovely new gadgets as much as the next person, but maybe we should start looking after that environment that’s taken such a beating so far? Just a thought
JAC: Shot, love your style!!
July 31st, 2006 at 10:56 pm
I want a cool rhyme too JAC… !
I obviously don’t purchase anything of quality (being poor and prone to accidents… the universe actually hates me) often but it’s an interesting notion. Les glaneurs et la glaneuse (The Gleaners and I) is a doco that takes the idea to the extreme. It follows people that “recycle” in different ways : from collecting other peoples hard rubbish to scavenging for food being thrown away… I’ll have to dig you up a copy sometime Will… It’ll be good for your french (settle, there are subtitles)….
July 31st, 2006 at 11:41 pm
Ok, so maybe my grandparents have moved well past their “good before” date, but i wouldn’t trade them in for new ones, i would definietly go shop around and look at newer better models from different brands before searching ebay for the cheapest solution, then finding some cheap Hong Kong internet based steal from the back packers sell to the rich scheme.
And too right, don’t you just hate these people who get 2 years into a 3 year warrenty and decide, stuff this i want the newer better model, toss their perfectly good laptop and con thir parents into paying for a brand new one for “their birthday.”
but i think your teacher has avery valid point, my uncle, who earns more money that he really knows what to do with bought a $800 camera for me to use in NZ in feb, he then informs me that he recently bought a $3500 dSLR camera to take (terrible, hope he doesn’t read this but he wouldn’t really know which end of a SLR to screw onto the camera!) shots of his kids who don’t do anything but sleep three times a day and look confused at the camera. (No, he didn’t have a baby will) The world is hell bent on a consumer pissing contest, biggger and newer is better. take blu ray dvd for instance… like 95% of the average consumers would know the difference between 100fps and 300fps… my grandparents can’t even read damn it, they sure as hell don’t know what a remote is and i constantly get calls asking how to rewind the dvd.
where does it stop?
July 31st, 2006 at 11:45 pm
btw kudos to the change to Will’s view… i know it’s been almost a week sice you’ve changed, but i bet you stopped getting those annoying questions asking you exactly what your blog is, and if they should see a doctor just incase it’s contageous.
August 1st, 2006 at 3:12 pm
Wow, someone who actually noticed… I’m flattered!
August 1st, 2006 at 3:56 pm
Wow, that dell laptop was really wasted. Guess I should be more careful with my 3.5 year old dell laptop.. or invest in some fireproof gloves or something..
August 1st, 2006 at 4:42 pm
since when did YOU get a conscience!!! impressed… but very concerned that something has happened to my consumerist brother?!
August 1st, 2006 at 9:52 pm
i’m still not giving you the ultimate free lunch though… not flush with dosh like some…
August 2nd, 2006 at 7:40 pm
Nick: Think maybe you should buy some oven mitts or something!
big sis: Yeah, who’d a thought, me with a conscience? I’m still a consumerist I spose, just one who sees the error in his ways…I think.
Dave: Do we know anyone “flush with dosh”? If so, I want my free lunch!
August 2nd, 2006 at 9:57 pm
ok, so i was writing an initial appreciation when i came across this…..
http://thatvideosite.com/view/2728.html
(yes it is just a little off topic )
August 2nd, 2006 at 11:01 pm
pete how many times do we have to tell you…
NO SITTING ON OTHER PEOPLE’S HEADS
that’s a bad pete, no roaming the savana for you!